


Sawbuck

by Kerensa



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerensa/pseuds/Kerensa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair bets that Jim, and some of their friends, can't refrain from using nicknames for Blair for a week. </p><p>The prompt for this chapter was, “Ten bucks says you can’t go a week.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sawbuck

**Sawbuck** \- [Kerensa](mailto:strifesmistress@yahoo.com)

_Sawbuck is an old-fashioned term for a ten dollar bill._

“Hey, Hairboy!” was Henri Brown’s enthusiastic greeting. 

The image of Bud Costello yelling, ‘Hey, Abbott!’ flashed through the curly haired man’s mind. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Blair thought about it for half a second and mentally shook his head. 

Okay, maybe he was sure. 

“Hi, H.” 

“Sandburg,” was Brian Rafe’s, not as enthusiastic, but no less friendly, greeting. 

“Hey, Brian. How’re you doing?” Blair asked the handsome detective. Whatever the well-dressed man’s reply was was lost in a sea of **Sandburg, Kid, Kiddo.** And one guy who Blair didn’t know that well added **Hey, you.**

The anthropologist smiled and waved, happy that at least people were friendly now. _Well, most of them,_ he amended silently. There were still quite a few people at the station who strenuously objected to the grad student being an observer. 

After a lot of smiling and waving, Blair managed to make it to Jim’s desk. He smiled automatically at the Sentinel and captain, who were both standing by the detective’s desk. 

“Hey, Jim. Simon,” Blair greeted the pair. Ellison gave him a half-smile in return, while Banks gave him a glare—mostly likely over Blair using his first name instead of his rank. 

_Gotta remember not to do that. It just ticks him off._

“Chief.” 

“Sandburg.” 

Blair sighed and shook his head. 

“Problem, Sandburg?” Banks asked. 

“No, it’s nothing.” 

_Nothing worth hassling over._

Ellison raised his eyebrows in obvious disbelief. “Want to try that again, Chief?” the detective asked. 

At the same time, Banks added his own dime’s worth, "More obfuscation, Sandburg?” 

Blair narrowed his eyes at the two men standing in front of him and mentally shrugged his shoulders. _Fine, if they want to push it, here goes._

“That, that’s exactly the problem.” 

“What?” Banks asked/growled. 

“No one seems to know my name around here.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The big captain rolled his eyes as he started to turn away. 

_Drama queen._

“That’s not true, Chief,” Jim protested. 

_Right?_

“Oh really?” Blair’s dark eyebrows shot up so high they almost disappeared into the curly lock of hair which had fallen across his forehead. “Since I walked in here I have been called at least a half dozen different names, none of which are my **given** one.” 

Jim frowned and Simon looked thoughtful, each man obviously thinking over the last few minutes. Around the room a few other people looked guilty. 

“So, uhm,” Blair took a quick look around and pointed to one man with his chin. “Hey you…” 

_Payback is such a bitch._

“…what’s my name?” Blair felt fairly safe calling on the blond man, because he was the _Hey you_ greeter from earlier. 

“I, uh…” he shrugged one shoulder helplessly. Despite the fact that Davis Stickler had known Blair since his (Blair’s that is) first day at the station, the officer had never bothered to learn Blair’s name. His face flushed under the scrutiny from most of the people in the bullpen. 

“Your name is Blair,” a voice answered softly. 

The anthropologist looked up and smiled. “Hey, Joel,” he greeted the tall, handsome, Bomb Squad captain. 

Blair was happy to see Joel Taggart, who had taken a liking to Blair from the start. Joel **always** used Blair’s name. Well, except for calling him _son_ once in a while and the younger man didn’t mind _that_ nickname. 

“Hmmm, I suppose you’re right,” Jim admitted, still frowning. “I’ll call you by your name from now on, Blair.” 

The observer nodded his head, but the smile on his face clued people into his real frame of mind. 

“You don’t think I can do it?” Ellison asked, pissed that his determination was being called into question. 

Blair started to deny it, but then thought, _What the hell._

“Sorry, Jim, but I don’t think you can stop calling me by all these nicknames. Not that I want you to completely,” he added, because really, Blair liked being called Chief…sometimes. Sandburg saw Jim’s eyes narrow and his teal colored eyes turned icy. 

_Uh oh._

“Want to bet?” 

“Aw, man, come on. It was just an observation,” Blair tried to pour oil on the proverbial troubled waters. 

“Do. You. Want. To. Bet?” Ellison emphasized each word. 

Sandburg threw his hands up in the air. “Sure,” he capitulated. **“Ten bucks says you can’t go a week.”**

“You’re on,” Jim said seriously. Then he smiled at Blair, a friendly smile, and the younger man relaxed. 

“Hey, I want a part of that action, too,” Henri Brown piped up. 

“So do I.” 

“And me.” 

Several more voices around the room added their willingness to join the bet. Blair’s eyes widened as Jim glanced around and shrugged. 

“Okay, but you’re not betting on my saying Blair’s given name.” All eyes swiveled to the detective, who gave them a smirk. “Everybody who bets has to use Blair’s name **only** or they cough up the ten bucks.” 

There was a little murmuring before H spoke again. “Okay, we agree.” 

“Count me in,” Banks added, really surprising Blair. 

“Hey, wait a minute! Ten dollars to Jim I could afford, but I’m a grad student, man, I don’t have the money to bet with all of you.” 

Jim patted his friend on the shoulder and Blair gave him a panicked look. He **really** didn’t have the money. Quite frankly, the $10 bet with Jim was going to be a strain on his monthly budget. 

“I have an idea.” Sandburg waited eagerly to see what the Sentinel was going to suggest. “If and when any of us call you by anything other than Blair, we give you the ten-spot. Any of us who don’t mess up, you have to help us with paperwork or something for an hour one day. How does that sound?” the Sentinel asked, not only Blair, but the other participants, as well. 

Blair realized that nobody was disagreeing with the proposal and decided it wouldn’t be too bad…if he actually lost. A few hours of extra paperwork wouldn’t be much different from what he did now. 

“Okay,” the observer agreed reluctantly, silently wondering how a stray comment got him in this mess. 

“So, when do we start this?” Rafe asked. 

Blair ran a hand through his hair. “I dunno. Now, I guess.” 

Banks nodded. “Alright, listen up people,” he spoke up. “The bet starts now. Anybody participating, add your name to this list.” He held up a piece of paper that already had Jim’s signature. With a flourish, the captain added his name in second place. “After that’s done…get back to work!” 

$$$$

“Ellison! Sandburg! My office. Now!” 

Simon’s bellow startled Blair, who jumped several inches in the air, sending the pen he’d been writing with flying across the desk. The younger man felt like his head was going to pound itself out of his chest any minute. He stood up quickly and followed behind Jim, who was already walking through the captain’s door. 

_Oh crap! Now what?_

Blair was busy, mentally reviewing anything that he might have done wrong—with or without Jim—and consequently failed to notice the amused look Jim was giving his commanding officer. He did notice the crossed arms and casual, leaning against the wall, stance, though. 

_Jim’s awfully casual. I wonder why?_

Ellison tended to behave in a more military like way when confronting a superior officer. Hands clasped behind his back, feet braced, shoulders back. But not this time. 

Simon glared at the Sentinel, obviously he also noticed the casual stance. “Something amusing you, detective?” he asked in a sarcastic tone of voice. 

“Oh, yes, sir,” Ellison answered respectfully and at distinct odds with his attitude. “I’m just waiting for you to think back to what you said.” At Simon’s blank look he continued, “Just a few moments ago…sir.” 

Simon’s dark brow furrowed as he thought. After a few moments he grimaced and smacked his forehead with the palm of one big hand. “Damn it, I didn’t even make it an hour,” he admitted. 

Blair reviewed the last couple of minutes. It didn’t take that long—because Banks hadn’t said that much—for the younger man to realize why Jim was so amused. 

“I’m so used to calling for Ellison and Sandburg that I forgot,” the captain admitted. 

“Oh.” Blair hadn’t realized either. He thought for a moment and was about to suggest that Simon, in his duties as captain, ought to be exempt, during working hours, when the older man spoke again. 

Banks shook his head ruefully. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a nice, brown leather wallet and extracted a ten dollar bill. Handing it to Blair, he said, “Here you go.” 

$$$$

“Brown,” Simon spoke loudly enough that everyone stopped what they were doing to see what he was going to say. 

“Yes, sir?” H asked. 

“Be sure and put my name down on the list.” 

“Uh. I already did, captain,” he said with a smile. 

“No, not that. I mean for paying Blair the ten-spot.” Banks raised an eyebrow and looked around the room. “I hope you people do better than I did.” Without waiting for a reply, Simon turned around and went back into his office. 

“See, I told ya,” Rafe said to Henri. The impeccably dressed young man held out his hand. Brown grinned at his partner and dropped a five dollar bill into said hand. 

“Yeah, you were right, he did realize what he’d said.” 

“Actually,” Jim piped up, an amused smirk on his face, “I’m the one who caught it.” 

Rafe and H laughed and the lighter skinned man was the recipient of another $5. Rather than be worried about the bet, which obviously included himself, Ellison seemed to be amused. 

Sitting down at Jim’s desk, Blair gave the closed office door a worried frown. “Hey, man. Do you think Simon’s mad?” the Guide asked his Sentinel. 

“Nah.” Jim glanced up from the file he’d just opened. “In fact,” he lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned forward. Blair matched the motion, bringing their heads closer together. “In fact, he’s laughing right now,” the detective reassured the observer. The curly haired man flicked a glance at the door and smiled. 

$$$$

The _Hey You_ guy was the next to fall. 

Apparently Mr. young, newly minted, _and oh so important_ —at least in his mind—detective, Jerry Morrison, hadn’t bothered to learn Blair’s name; not even his last name, let alone his first. So, when the detective needed help with the copier, and Rhonda was out eating her lunch, he asked Blair, in the only way he knew how. 

“Hey You. Can you get this damned thing to work?” 

Blair, Jim, and several other people in the bullpen just smiled at him. Jerry was confused, until Brown held up the paper with all of the names of the people who had signed up. Morrison groaned and leaned over to thunk his head against the copier cover, but when Blair came over to help, he forked over the money without a protest. 

$$$$

Over the next couple of days most everyone else who was participating in the bet fell like dominoes. A weak, shaky row of dominoes. 

Brown held out longer than anyone—himself included—expected. But, in the end, he messed up, too. 

Friday night poker game 

“Read ‘em and weep, Hairboy,” Henri crowed as he laid down the winning hand. It wasn’t often that Brown beat Blair, who was a whiz at poker, and he was justified in being a little smug. 

“Listen up and weep, Brown,” Jim parroted him back. 

H thought for a moment before he groaned. Everyone, including Henri, laughed. They laughed even harder when Henri had to fork over all of his winnings—and then some—to pay Blair the ten bucks he owed him. They were cops, after all, so they kept the gambling to a minimum and just bet with pennies, making the _jackpot_ only worth a couple of dollars. 

“You held out longer than I thought you would,” Blair told his follically-challenged friend. 

“Me too,” Brown admitted with a small chuckle. 

Several of the men around the table—most of whom had already lost the bet—added their agreement. Joel, who hadn’t been eligible for the bet, because he almost always called Blair by his first name, just shook his head at the antics. Henri muttered something about _where’s the love_ , but from the tooth showing grin on his face, Blair knew that he wasn’t really put out. 

“I had begun to think you were going to make it, H,” Rafe added. “I guess you just couldn’t hold out against Sandburg here…” the debonair detective’s voice trailed off as a knowing look crossed his face. With a rueful shake of his head, he handed over the money. 

$$$$

Blair sat on one of the couches, folding up clothes. There was a huge pile of folded clothes on the coffee table in front of his and an even bigger one on the couch beside him, waiting to be folded. Both men had been really busy the last couple of weeks and hadn’t had much time to do the laundry, so while Jim was taking a shower, Blair wanted to put away as much of the washing as possible. 

“Sandburg! Where the hell are the damned towels?!” 

The younger man sighed before standing up. He didn’t even bother to knock on the bathroom door, deciding that if Jim was going to bellow like that then he could just shove any privacy. Walking into the steam filled room, Blair ignored Jim’s glare—his face was peering around the shower curtain, like a pissed off Cheshire Cat—and went over to the cabinet. Opening the door wide, the younger man gestured expansively to the three towels lying on the shelf. 

Blair had it timed down to an art, knowing when they absolutely had to do laundry; a pair of pants, underwear and shirt each, and three towels. Jim could get by with one towel to dry off, but Blair had to have two, one for the hair on his head and one for the pelt on his body. 

He turned and gave his friend a raised eyebrow. Blair was interested to note that Jim’s face had turned an interesting shade of rubicund. 

“Right here…Ellison,” he said in a calm, sweet voice…with a knowing grin. Jim had lost the bet on the last night of the bet. By tomorrow morning the Sentinel would have won. 

“Oh! Son of a gun!” Jim shook his head and smiled. “You win, Chief. Get your sawbuck out of my wallet.” 

Blair nodded. He had won enough to buy an expensive book he’d found, written by an Inuit shaman, that talked about Sentinels. And, despite his complaints, the anthropologist found that he missed some of the nicknames, especially Chief. 

Still…he’d won! Blair did a little victory dance in the living room. 

The End. 

Acknowledgements: Betaed by Bobbie. I want to thank my daughter, Caitlin, for taking the prompt and giving me the idea for the story. 


End file.
